


Safe

by broodywolf



Series: Worth Fighting For [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 15:32:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4711097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broodywolf/pseuds/broodywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen isn't the only one whose past haunts them. Sometimes, it's up to him to offer comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

The hallway was quiet. It shouldn’t have been, there should have been mages going about their business, templars patrolling these halls. The apprentices should have been having class in the next room; a few rooms further there the enchanters ought to have been working on their research. But now an eerie quiet blanketed the entire hall.

It wasn’t the unexpected silence that caught her attention, though.

A trail of splintered wood scattered across the otherwise spotless stone floor. The ruined pieces of an all too familiar staff lay just a bit further.

These were not the things that caught her attention, either.

It was the blood. Too much of it, and she was afraid to follow it, to see where it led, to see who had shed it. She knew she had to, though. That was how it worked.

A few paces, through the archway at the end of the hall to where most of the blood pooled sickeningly on the floor.

It was her. Of course it was, there was a logic to these things after all. It was always going to be her.

Grier’s face was broken almost beyond recognition. Her nose bent at an even more unnatural angle than Alyx’s own, a gash across her lips, ugly bruises surrounding her eye, making it swell shut. Her dark hair was matted with blood. One hand outstretched as though she had been trying to reach for something in her final moments.

Alyx fell to her knees, heedless of the blood. This was wrong. This was so wrong. That face had laughed with her, had cried with her, those hands had held her— This was not supposed to happen. Why had they not taken her instead? They should have taken her. Grier couldn’t be dead. Grier, with her insuppressible high spirits, a joke on her lips and a smile on her face. The idea of that smile, extinguished forever…

A shadow loomed over her. She raised her head slowly, knowing what she would see.

The templar made no immediate move to take her. He towered over her, a monument to all of her fears and dashed hopes.

Then there was a cold metal gauntlet around her wrist, as she felt the familiar feeling like a punch to the gut as he purged her magic. She screamed.

“Alyx!”

“No, no no no please, let me go, just let me _go_ —”

“Alyx, look at me. Open your eyes. _Please_ , Alyx.”

The templar’s voice broke slightly as he pleaded with her, and her eyes snapped open in confusion.

Cullen was leaning over her, close but not touching. His brow was knitted with worry.

 _“Cullen_.” Alyx hated how weak her voice was, but if there was one person she knew would never judge her for it, it was him. Tears had apparently already begun to stream down her face before she was fully awake, and she stifled a small sob.

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. You’re not there anymore.” He settled into the bed beside her, one arm raised in invitation. He never touched her after a nightmare unless it was on her terms, and she loved him for it. But now she accepted his invitation gladly, curling herself around him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders to hold her close, and planted a kiss in her short hair. She bunched her fingers in his shirt, shuddering slightly as though to shake off the remnants of the dream.

“Bad one?”

She just nodded, cheek sliding against the soft material of his shirt. His free hand moved up to smooth over her hair, and he traced her cheek gently with his thumb.

“You’re safe now. You’re not ever going back there,” he murmured. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”


End file.
